analytical essay, third - Poggetti Nick Poggetti November...

Poggetti Nick Poggetti November 6, 2007 Analytical Essay Corporate McDomination At one point or another, we have all purchased a hotel and placed it neatly on the blue rectangle labeled “Boardwalk” or “Park Place.” Monopoly: A classic board game that is a great alternative form of fun from today’s electronic world. Or is it? Created by the Parker Brothers in emulation of an early 1900s Quaker woman’s game, Monopoly portrayed how one person could get rich and control everything. It showed how much power one with wealth could obtain. Throughout the past few hundred years, we have encountered certain figures and companies who have incredible impacts on the world through their business, but have controlled and dominated the market through not-so-legal ways. Although monopolistic practices are illegal in business today, many companies tend to push the borders. Margaret Atwood gives a possible example of how far businesses will go to achieve greatness in her novel, Oryx and Crake. She provides a scary but plausible scenario which results in complete devastation. But even with the sci-fi touch added by Atwood, one can see the parallels between HelthWyzer’s business strategies and those used by current day companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks. Atwood proposes that today’s business practices are heading down a dark path, even if they are regulated by law. Many of the big time companies of today’s world stop at nothing to gain the largest possible profit, regardless of law and consequence. The board game Monopoly was released onto the market only a few years after the shutdown of John Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Standard Oil dominated nearly all of America’s oil prices and distribution. The company grew quickly, putting competitors out of

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Poggetti business and buying them out. Standard Oil decided the prices for oils by printing flyers and posting them, leaving competitors in a tight situation. They had no choice but to sell at the price Standard Oil set. The growth and business practices of Standard Oil were criticized heavily, but Standard Oil always fought with similar arguments of doing business and providing cheap prices. Standard Oil is a historic example, and today’s big businesses have many similarities to the ways that it operated. Compared to what the coffee scene was in previous years, not many family owned, “mom and pop,” coffee shops exist anymore. The coffee dominator known as Starbucks is a large reason for the disappearance of family owned coffee shops. While not breaking any direct laws, Starbucks runs many smaller businesses into bankruptcy. They see a competitor, and offer to buy

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